After supper that evening 4 adults and 1 toddler ate coconut ice cream for dessert, sampling all five flavors. I should mention that coconut ice cream is rather dense and filling compared with the average dairy ice cream, and So Delicious doesn’t seem to add air to their ice cream. 1/4 cup is a reasonable serving – except that we multiplied that by five! So it really was an ice cream orgy.

All five So Delicious coconut ice cream flavors were rich and delicious. Vying for top place were the EXTREMELY delicious No Sugar Added Mint Chocolate Chip and Gluten Free Cookie Dough, followed by the simply delicious Vanilla Bean, which was awesome with fresh Missouri peaches.

The No Sugar Added Butter Pecan was just ordinarily delicious. We felt that the caramel flavoring could use improvement – perhaps actual sugar?

The Gluten Free Cookies & Cream was also ordinary. Given that GF Oreos often taste like cardboard, we felt that maybe So Delicious should try using a different brand in this ice cream.

The So Delicious no sugar added ice creams are sweetened with erythritol and monks fruit extract.

Erythritol: A sugar alcohol. The pros are that it’s low calorie and low glycemic compared to sugar, the cons are that it’s a fermented food additive derived from corn, may cause indigestion, and is not as sweet as sugar. As a sugar replacement, erythritol is the most expensive to produce and gets high marks for taste. My feeling is that it’s fine in small quantities.

Monks Fruit Extract: Monks fruit or Lo Han is a melon-like Asian gourd, containing an antioxidant called mogroside, 200 to 500 times sweeter than table sugar. Supposedly (take this with a grain of salt), researchers are looking into high doses of mogrosides in the treatment of cancer and diabetes, with one animal study showing that mogrosides improved fasting blood sugar levels in addition to increasing “good” HDL cholesterol.

The So Delicious ice creams we sampled are enhanced with various emulsifying, stabilizing and thickening products: soy lecithin, gum arablic, locust bean gum, guar gum, and carrageenan. If any of those disagrees with you, I’d recommend making your own ice cream, which is actually quite easy. It just takes time.

I don’t have much time, I don’t eat ice cream often, and I’m willing to live with a small amount of all those relatively benign food additives for the sake of the convenience and deliciousness of it all.

After resting up from our ice cream orgy, we ate the 5 flavors of cultured almond milk for breakfast, and everyone voted ‘Yummy!’, including the 2 year old.

The flavors and texture of the cultured almond products went down very well. They are also pretty nutritious – high in protein and fiber, and low in sugar and fat compared to typical flavored dairy yogurts, some of which are as much as 1/3 sugar by volume.

I liked the addition of B12. ‘Natural Flavors’ is the only ingredient that raised my eyebrows, as that phrase is often food industry speak for MSG. I queried So Delicious about my concern and got this response to set my mind at rest:

“In terms of the natural flavors, they can be comprised of many or just a few compounds that are extracted from plants, fruits and beans. So, for example, our vanilla flavor comes from vanilla extract. I didn’t know if you had any concerns about natural flavors due to castoreum (beaver anal glands). Yes, scary I know. But rest assured that because we are certified vegan, our products never contain any animal products or byproducts.”

Zoe the Coffee Drinker scientifically tested the So Delicious almond creamers, dividing her coffee into two cups, adding Original Flavor to one, and French Vanilla to the other. She added rather a lot, since they aren’t as creamy as say, whipping cream, which is what she usually adds to her coffee. But since there are only 5 calories per Tbsp, using 1/4 cup wasn’t so bad. And Zoe said it was very tasty!

Saving the Best for Last – Sugar Free Mini Coconut Fudge Bars: I’ve always been a fool for fudge bars, and these are simply awesome! We all loved them, and we were sad that there weren’t more.

I would buy these mini fudge bars for myself, although I’m sure I’d eat them all at once. But hey! They’re sugar free, high protein, high fiber, low glycemic, and only 80 calories per bar. I’m thinking 4 bars for breakfast – why not? :-)

All in All, So Delicious almond and coconut products get my enthusiastic vote, along with my husband’s, my daughter’s, her husband’s and her daughter’s.

Daughter Sarah and her family back in Iowa were already staunch fans, and were thrilled to receive the two coupons for any free So Delicious product. In the spirit of self-interest, I highly recommended they try the GF Cookie Dough and the Sugar Free Mint Chocolate Chip coconut ice creams.